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[[category:Chinese Philosophers]]
[[category:Chinese Philosophers]]
Although the classical Chinese word "e" is often translated as "bad" or "evil," the term itself is not consistent with the concept of "evil" as it's understood in the Western tradition. For example, it is not associated with notions such as "sin" or "fallen-ness." That is, "evil" in the Judeo-Christian sense refers to a phenomenon that entered upon the world after the fall, both the fall of man and the fall of Lucifer. For Xunzi, "evil" never entered upon the world as a supernatural force acting counter to the will of a benevolent God. Here we ought to remember that Xunzi was an atheist. Rather, when Xunzi refers to the nature (xing) of man (renzhi) as evil (e), he seems to mean that the human animal is organized in such a way that civilization, morality, rituals, etc. are not things that come naturally to the human being and are artifacts (wei) that are supervene upon human animality by means of assiduous self-cultivation (xiushen).